Karagandy Southeast Airport

The airport was closed to major commercial traffic and replaced due to several factors:
1. **Urban Encroachment:** The city of Karagandy expanded significantly, and the airport became surrounded by the large 'Yugo-Vostok' (Southeast) residential district, making operations a source of noise pollution and a safety concern.
2. **Inadequate Infrastructure:** Its runway and facilities were too small and outdated to handle the larger, modern Soviet jetliners of the era, such as the Ilyushin Il-62 and Tupolev Tu-154, which required longer runways and more advanced navigational aids. The new Sary-Arka airport was built to accommodate these next-generation aircraft.

The site is no longer a functioning airport. While the main runway and some taxiways are still physically visible from satellite imagery, they are in a state of significant disrepair. The former runway is now primarily used as an 'autodrome' (автодром), serving as a large practice area for local driving schools for cars and trucks. The surrounding area contains some light industrial buildings and garages. The old terminal and administrative buildings are either repurposed or derelict. The site is essentially a brownfield area with remnants of its aviation past.

This was the original main airport for Karagandy, serving as the primary air gateway to the important industrial and coal-mining region of the Kazakh SSR from the post-WWII period until the mid-1980s. It handled scheduled passenger and cargo flights connecting Karagandy with Moscow, Almaty (then Alma-Ata), and other major cities across the Soviet Union. The airport was a hub for various Soviet-era aircraft, starting with propeller planes like the Li-2, Il-14, and An-24, and later accommodating early jet aircraft like the Tupolev Tu-104, Tu-124, and Ilyushin Il-18. After its closure to civil aviation, the airfield was used for a period by DOSAAF (a Soviet-era paramilitary sport and technical society) for sport aviation, including flight training and parachuting.

There are no known or realistic prospects for reopening the airport. The reasons are definitive:
1. **Location:** It is now deeply embedded within a densely populated urban area, making a revival for aviation purposes unsafe and impractical.
2. **Redundancy:** The modern Sary-Arka International Airport (UAKK) is a large, capable facility that fully serves the current and projected needs of the Karagandy region.
3. **Cost:** The existing infrastructure is completely derelict and would require a total, prohibitively expensive reconstruction to meet any modern aviation standards. The land is more valuable for potential urban redevelopment than for aviation.